


Haiku for London

by imochan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, MWPP Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan/pseuds/imochan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days after.</p><p>Written for the Picture is Worth A Thousand Words challenge, 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haiku for London

**Author's Note:**

> For the 'A picture is worth 1,000 words' challenge. Apologies to Remus, those with little patience for misery, and Mrs. Dalloway.

Sad, sad fic. Sad. Thx to the usual suspects for their pickeries! :x

 **Title:** Haiku for London  
 **Author:** [](http://imochan.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://imochan.livejournal.com/)**imochan**  
 **Rating:** PG13/R  
 **Pairing:** Sirius/Remus (vaguely)  
 **Summary:** Three days after.  
 **Notes:** For the 'A picture is worth 1,000 words' challenge. Apologies to Remus, those with little patience for misery, and Mrs. Dalloway.

\---

When he wakes on the next morning, it's still autumn. It has been for two days - since he's been keeping track. It's cool enough to make goosebumps prick on the skin at the back of his calves; it's crisp and visible in the way the leaves curl brittle claws, grasping into the branches. Twigs and seedpods scuttle on his windowsill; the sky is huge, wide and painfully, confectionary blue. The film on his tongue tastes a little musty, the beginning of a healthy rot, he thinks, and climbs out of bed.

He fills the kettle with water, and makes a mug of tea with the dredges of the loose herbs in the tin canister. The clock above the kitchen table whispers of nine o'clock; the streetcar clatters past his building. In the park across the street, a line of schoolgirls in grey uniforms hold hands and kick the leaves.

Today, he is going to buy bread for dinner. There is a little money left in the porcelain dish over the sink, enough – he counts it out on a dry palm – for that.

\---

It takes three hours to dress. He stands naked in front of the mirror for the most of it, and listens to the building come alive below him. His ears strain for it.

\---

There are leaves at the bottom of the stairs, sifting under the door with the wind.

Hello, he says, to his landlord, who is an man of fifty-eight, with frosted-sugar cataracts in his left eye. He always has a smile, stilted English, telling Remus to wear more warm clothing, now, the snow coming, yes.

Yes, he says, thank you, and continues down the stairs in the only cotton jumper he owns. Wool sticks to things, like smells.

\---

He stands in line and swallows at the scent of warm dough. He can feel the gritty flake of strudel under his fingers, clinging to his palms, damp apple sugar against his teeth, his mouth full of saliva, tongue thick at the feel of yeast in his nostrils. There are muffins, sticky with damp fruit, steaming from the oven. Fresh bread and the embrace of cloying cherry filling, granules of black, peppery pumpernickel, meaty sourdough, thick vanilla creams and chocolate fudges.

"A loaf of white," he says. His voice is hoarse; he has to repeat himself. "Please."

\---

He stops in the park to get his bearings. The sky seems wide enough to eat him up, his fingers ache from clenching unconsciously in his pockets, around the bundle of bread and brown paper in his arms; it smells like a frighteningly living thing, wriggling and cooing - though, though it's just the pigeons, he thinks, it's just the pigeons on the sidewalk.

He sits on the bench, and places the bread on his lap, and sits, sits, just to feel the rough wood on his thighs (he remembers the places where large palms cupped his backside, his ribs, his damp cheekbones when they were _shaking_ with it, with love and anger).

Across the grass, there are three dogs, blonde as sunlight, sleek like tumbling water. Two are large, with big, floppy, silky ears and oily eyes, loud growls, voices that sound like names being called across the street against the traffic, in the crowd of a pub, the bark of recognition. One is small, dappled like leaves, its paw is slightly limp on the left side; he feels a twinge in his side in pathetic sympathy. Shut up, he thinks, no one cares how much you feel for this creature.

They press their noses against their furry necks and he breaks off a piece of bread for the pigeons, because his stomach has closed up, thickly. The small dog noses a crumb that's fallen at the side of the path; it smells his shoes, his ankles, with a huff.

I can't take care of you, he whispers. I'm sorry, and the speckled dog presses its damp nose into his hand. Go away, he says, go away. I don't have any more, he says. I'm out of it all.

\---

He picks up his post from inside his door – the _Prophet_ owl is sitting demurely on the kitchen table, pecking at the tea dregs in his mug. He finds a few knuts in the porcelain bowl and holds it out with outstretched hand, palm up to the clever beak.

The owl leaves the paper on the table, folded open like a curling leaf - he glances as it as he goes to clean out the tea, and pauses. Pause, don't move, don't breathe, here – he thinks – is where you test the merit of your mettle. If you blink, he whispers, you lose.

\-- _charged_ , it says. _And sentenced to --_.

He puts down the mug, and goes to vomit in the bathroom sink.

Later, he wipes his face and mouth with a wet flannel, and brushes his teeth with the last of the toothpaste, and ignores the way his bones rattle in his head when he spits. It has been three days. Shape up, he thinks, snap out of it, give up, get out, fucking get _on_.

But he stands in the doorway of his bedroom and sees wriggling bodies in the shadows, hears barking in his ears, feels evening on his eyelids like a sloppy tongue, heavy, heady, traitorous. The sheets are still shoved into a wrinkled pile at the bottom of his bed because they smell like warm, tangled bodies, with large hands and black hair, leather, cigarettes, a smile that felt _slick_ against his spine.

He will rake them up tomorrow, he thinks. All tomorrow. Tomorrow, he will clean, he thinks. He will buy more bread, and meat, he says, and vegetables to make a soup, and he will read the headlines, and rip his life from the walls, he will leave, he will stay and do the dishes, he will move, _move_ , and rage, and he will refuse to cry.

\---


End file.
